May 28, 2008

Quick Poll

Yesterday, my buddy Andrew and I were discussing the season finale of the TV show "House."

During the episode, a woman is injured in a bus accident. However, there are some strange complications that seem to imply a dangerous preexisting condition. The patient is put into a medical coma while the doctors attempt to diagnose her and find the proper treatment.

The doctors eventually realize that the patient cannot be cured and will soon die. The boyfriend is given the choice whether to let her die peacefully in her sleep or to have her awakened so that they can say goodbye to one another and he can tell her about her impending death. This being television, he naturally chooses to have her woken up. They lie together on the hospital bed for a few hours, tell each other how much they love one another, and then she naturally slips into a coma and dies.

While Andrew and his wife Lara were watching the show, Lara immediately spun towards him and said, "Just for the record, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT WAKING ME UP!" Andrew completely agreed.

I posed this hypothetical to the BossLady and she didn't hesitate either. After thinking about if for a brief millisecond, she told me that she wouldn't want to be woken up either.

Me? I thought there was something romantic about it. I would want to be woken up. I could tell my wife and daughter how much I loved them. I could offer them my last lessons on life. Also, I think it would help provide closure for everyone and maybe make their suffering a little less painful.

Plus, knowing I was going to die, I could inhale a giant cheesesteak with fried onions and pickles, maybe catch a Mets game on TV, and then still have time to call a few people and tell them how much I hate them. How bad could it be? Sounds great!

Andrew thinks I'm a romantic idiot and that the idea of being woken up, only to be told that you were about to die, is morbidly disturbing. He thinks if we asked 100 people, 99 would not want to be woken up.

So naturally we agreed that we'd post the question here on the blog.

What's the deal, my friends? Would you want to be woken up from a coma so that you could say your goodbyes and be told that you have only hours to live? Or would you rather stay in the coma and pass peacefully? And why would you pick one choice over another?

Definitely I'd want to be woken up. I'd want to tell my wife and daughters how much I love them and stuff like that. I'd also like to draw up plans for a propper funeral:
No religious hocus-pocus
Giant comical picture of me behind the microphone.
Specially selected music, including some Tom Waits, Richard Thompson, Nusrat Ali Fata Khan, Fella Khuti, "Sweet Child of Mine", Roxy Music, Talking Heads, some crazy Arabic stuff, etc...
Specific instructions on who my girls should date one day (I'll leave my wife's choices for her own dating up to her).
And, as a grand finale, I'd like to have my ashes shot out of a cannon,or at least a potato cannon (Curse you, Hunter S. Thompson, I swear to God I thought of that long before you stole it).

No brainer. Wake me up so that I could properly say goodbye then pack in some earthly joys. Shuffling off the mortal coil would be so much easier knowing that I at least had the opportunity to show some dignity at the end.

I'd want to be woken up. Closure and all that, tell people/someone what kind of memorial service i want (celebrate my life - not mourn it), say good bye to the kids, that kind of stuff . . . pickles? pickles on your cheesesteak?! ugh.

Wake me up. Probably worse for me because I'll know I'm going to die, but much, much better for my family who gets to say goodbye and will remember the goodbyes long after I'm gone. And since I'm dying either way, might as well make their lives a little better for the closure it would give.

I've always wanted to die in my sleep. I think if someone woke me up and told me I was about to die, I'd freak out so much that I wouldn't be much use to any of my close friends or family. Instead of telling them how much I loved them, I'd probably run around naked screaming, "Why ME?"

Given the choice, I'd want to be woken up. I think it would give the family closure, and I could say my goodbyes and tell everyone how much I love them. If that's a romantic notion, color me romantic. It'd be a first! :-)

I'd want to be woken up, unless I was going to be in a huge amount of pain. Opportunity to say any final words (or for people to at least know I didn't go with anything left unsaid) and time for 1 last hurrah, no matter how small (e.g. downing a big bowl of full-fat ice-cream with 0 guilt).

John and I had the time to say everything we wanted to say to each other before he died, one of the few gifts of a long illness. But in the last few days he was alive, he was mostly asleep. When he woke up, he was delirious and confused. If there had been a way to have just a few minutes of clarity with him during those last days, I would have given anything for them.

I've been thinking about your family. I hope things are going as well as they can be, given the circumstances.

I think I'd definitely want to be woken up. To have a few more minutes with my son and my husband would be worth it. Plus if I were on the other side I would want to be selfish and get every last second that I could.

Very interesting reading everyone's feelings about it. I'm with you, I'd want to be woken up and have a chance to say a few last words to my family and friends. I think closure would be important for my little boys.

I'd want to wake up. Even if it is just in a cold sterile hospital room, I'd want the chance to say goodbye, say last words, and tell everyone how much I loved them. I'd want the hugs and kisses. Until I actually die, I would want to grab onto every opportunity to live.

Ideally, I'll have lived a life where I'm at peace with everyone close to me no matter when I kick the bucket.

That said, I'd stay in the coma because (a) I'm a wh0re for my sleep, (b) I'd likely end up wasting those last precious hours trying to catch up on TiVoed shows, and (c) I don't need to be b1tched at about spending 31 minutes with so-and-so vs. only 27 minutes with someone else. Because with my family, that's what would inevitably happen.

It would suck to wake up just to die but who's got the right to make me die in my sleep without giving me a chance to do or say anything? I don't care if it's minutes, hours, days or just a few months. How do you draw a line? I don't want to be on life support brain dead but if I'm not brain dead then time to say goodbye is the LEAST you could do for me.

people who say they would not want to be woken up are non-confrontational passive-aggressive types. in their afterlife they'd be regretful and miserable that they didn't get "closure," as this is what therapy always teaches us we must do to "get over" any tragic circumstance that bogs us down emotionally and ruins so many of us. i would definitely want to be awake to be told of what's next so we can have our good-byes and such. if you asked older people who have lived life (more fully or what have you) you'd hear the latter..... avoiding reality to be let off the hook is the easy way out. quite selfish if you think about it. your loved ones have more to say to you than you would think you'd want to say yourself knowing you're going out.

Not to sound like a huge martyr - because I'm usually not - but I would want to be woken up to give my husband a chance to say goodbye.

Having sort of recently gone through this, I found watching the last episode of House very disturbing.

My best friend's husband (in his 30s) was suffering from a very rare form of cancer. They knew he most likely only had a few months left to live. He had surgery to remove some tumors, which would hopefully have lengthened his life a bit. Instead, a tumor traveled into his pulmonary artery, causing cardiac arrest. He was revived, though was not conscious, and was put on life support. After two days and several tests by neurologists to show he had suffered major brain damage and had little brain activity, my friend chose to turn off life support (which was her husband's wish from previous conversations), and then he died 20 minutes later.

While my friend was at her husband's bedside, and her mother-in-law said that he wouldn't have wanted to be in the state he was in, my friend kept crying she just wanted the chance to say goodbye to him. Of course, she wanted much more than that, but she didn't even get that chance.

So, I understand Wilson wanting to say goodbye, and I would understand if my husband would want to say goodbye if he were in Wilson's place.

One minor correction, though maybe it's not a correction, on House, she didn't naturally slip into a coma and die (unless you meant, naturally like "of course." Wilson had to choose when to take her off life support. That is awful!)

WOKEN UP! Totally. For my loved ones. Having lost people suddenly, and also not so suddenly, I know how much it can screw up those left behind to never have had a chance to say goodbye - for a person you love to just suddenly be...gone.

As tempting as it sounds to allow myself one last chance to clog my arteries with fried foof, I would ask that you not wake me up out of my coma. Since I'm in the coma and feeling nothing, I'd just assume keep it that way. As for the final goodbyes, I'd hope my wife and kids have enough good memories to hold on to. I have no interest in knowing that I'm about to die when I was on the road to eternal bliss anyway.

It seems like this becomes an issue of control. Can I not rest in peace or does someone have to invade my space and make sure that I know I am about to rest in peace? How's that for a way to end one's life-having an argument about someone trying to CONTROL you even as you are about to go.

I would definitely want to be woken up, you never know what the situation was and I would hate for husbando to ever question how much he was loved. I also think it would take away a lot of the "what ifs" that can be left behind with death...

Oh I would so want to be woken up. Mostly because I would want every moment to say my good-byes, but also because I would need to make sure that my fiance knew my bank password and that I hadn't paid the gas bill yet. Both romantic AND practical!

no seriously...I am a romantic emotional schlub and would like to be woken up so that I can have one final hug from my husband and kids, so I can touch my kids' hair and faces one last time, so I can tell my other loved ones how much I love them and will be watching over them, and to make sure I have a good moment to make peace in my heart with God, a last confession/last rites of sorts (except that I'm Protestant, but you know same basic idea).